As long as no major changes occur, the imperial court's major policies every five years will be implemented strictly in accordance with the established plan.
This is a modern governance concept, which is a huge progress for the feudal dynasty's man-governed society.
In the five years since the founding of the Ming Dynasty, although the war has continued, the Ming Dynasty's first five-year plan has never relaxed.
The main purpose of the first five-year plan is to stabilize the country and the people, and to recuperate and recuperate.
"A total of 55.63 million people in all the states and capitals in the world are suffering!"
"The Ming Dynasty has a total of 1,258,600 officers and soldiers in various departments!"
"One hundred and sixteen tributes to Fan Kingdom and Ji Mi Land!"
…
Under the gaze of everyone, Zhu Han picked up the memorial in his hand, and then read the data on it again.
Zhu Han read the numbers compiled by Li Shanchang, Liu Bowen and others, and his elder brother Zhu Yuanzhang showed unabashed pride on his face.
Because the Mongols and other forces were driven out quickly and steadily, the population loss of the entire world was not as great as it had been in history.
After several years of recuperation, the population of Ming Rujing has reached more than 50 million.
And this population does not include the southwest region occupied by Chen Youliang.
With a population of 50 to 60 million, the Ming Dynasty can be said to have unlimited potential.
"The affairs of tens of millions of people, the food, clothing, housing and transportation of millions of troops, so many things, no matter how big or small, are all handled by us personally. Even if we are exhausted, we will definitely not be able to handle them properly."
The basic tone of today's cabinet meeting is the affirmation of the first five years, and then the layout of the plan for the next five years.
Everyone just discussed for a while, and basically all national policies have been formulated.
Zhu Han suddenly said this now, making everyone feel confused.
"Qiwu, tell me, what are your thoughts?" Brother Zhu Yuanzhang asked with a smile.
He liked to hear Zhu Han come up with unique ideas, because whenever Zhu Han came up with his own ideas, it would definitely make the Ming Dynasty's national power stronger.
Although sometimes the ideas put forward by Zhu Han sound incredible at first, the subsequent results can always prove Zhu Han's correctness.
"The national policies that Li Liu and others mentioned just now are very good, but there is one thing that was not considered!" Zhu Han said slowly.
"I wonder what Lao Li didn't consider?"
"Can you please give me your instructions, Your Majesty the King?"
Li Shanchang and Liu Bowen immediately asked Zhu Han respectfully like primary school students.
"Qiwu, tell me quickly, where are you?" Brother Zhu Yuanzhang also asked immediately.
More than a dozen people had just discussed it for several hours, and the national policy they formulated was almost flawless.
Zhu Han shook his head slightly, "This national policy is really well formulated. It can be said that it is so detailed that every county magistrate only needs to implement it according to the official documents of the imperial court!"
Naturally, the implementation details of the national policies formulated by the Ming Emperor and the cabinet cannot be specific to every official. Being able to reach this level is considered very detailed.
"The more detailed the rules are, the better?" Zhu Yuanzhang said with some doubts.
"It's good, but there's really too much work to do. This is just a year-round task for a county magistrate. It's enough to keep a seventh-grade county magistrate busy. And when it comes to implementation, these restrictions will definitely
We need to assign tasks to the officials below. The specific work of these people will definitely be more and more complicated, and naturally they will be harder and more tiring!" Zhu Han said slowly.
"Officials have salaries, and the people are rich and anointed. If they take the salary from the court, of course they have to work more and let them have free food. That would be a disservice to the people of the world!" Zhu Yuanzhang, the elder brother, said seriously.
Zhu Hanke was not surprised by this statement.
Zhu Yuanzhang was famous in history for being strict and stingy with officials. In the early Ming Dynasty, many officials did not dare to take bribes and relied heavily on the salary from the court. In many cases, it was difficult to even feed and clothe their families. They had to make themselves
The family donated food and money so that they could maintain their livelihood while serving as officials in other places.
You can imagine how low official salaries were in the early Ming Dynasty.
But people's hearts have been self-interested since ancient times. The imperial court wanted to use the small salary to make officials work like cattle and horses. Those who can pass the imperial examination and become officials are not fools.
As the saying goes, there are policies from above and countermeasures from below.
All kinds of fancy filial piety and corruption methods were displayed one by one.
Emperor Hongwu set a standard of integrity for officials and wanted them to be saints, but he did not expect that the Ming Dynasty would breed more corrupt officials.
Therefore, Zhu Han's strategy is basically to take the path of high salary and high integrity.
Although high salaries cannot make greedy officials honest, it can enable officials who want to do politics well to stick to their own principles and avoid corruption in order to make a living.
In the historical era of the British Empire, it achieved an empire on which the sun never sets in colonial rule. The salary level of its domestic officials is also unique in the world, much higher than that of France, Prussia, and Spain on the European continent during the same period.
Austria, Netherlands, etc.
"Just now you all said how much silver the imperial court had in surplus this year, how much silver the imperial court had in surplus the year before, and how much silver it had in the year before that. There is more and more silver in the treasury."
"But the Ming Dynasty was a court, not a business house. Its purpose was to govern the world, and it was not to accumulate money. It does not mean that the more money you accumulate, the better!"
"Thousands of dollars are piled up in the treasury. Sometimes, urgently needed food and supplies can be purchased, but some things cannot be bought immediately if you have money."
"For example, the administrative execution of officials of all sizes in the imperial court is not something that can be achieved overnight. If they are not allowed to do their best from the beginning, when problems arise, supervising and punishing them may not be effective!"
"Instead of doing this, it would be better to spend some money from the imperial court to increase the salaries of these officials, and at the same time expand the recruitment of some officials!"
Zhu Han's long speech made the elder brother Zhu Yuanzhang, Li Shanchang, Liu Bowen and other court ministers fall into deep thought and surprise.
In fact, when the Ming Dynasty was founded, the salaries set for officials were not low. The annual salary of a county magistrate could reach 22 silver, which is equivalent to about three to four hundred thousand.
However, in recent years, the Ming Dynasty's economy has developed rapidly and prospered. Coupled with the influx of large amounts of gold and silver from the Japanese country of Liaoyang and other places into the country, the prices of many things have increased significantly, and silver that originally seemed relatively large has become commonplace.
Moreover, at the beginning of the founding of the Ming Dynasty, one of the measures in the official system of the feudal dynasties was followed, that is, there were a large number of subordinate officials in Chaotian Yamen, large and small!
Although these subordinate staff also represent the authority of the court, they do not enjoy the official treatment. They often do the most work but cannot get a few big shots from the court. When they come into contact with specific affairs, they naturally
Gradually, they will become corrupt and corrupt.
"Increase salary?"
"Expansion of officials?"
Brother Zhu Yuanzhang couldn't help but ponder these two suggestions put forward by Zhu Han.
There is no doubt that these two suggestions have one core problem, which is that they require a large amount of money to be paid out every year.
The happiest thing for Zhu Yuanzhang now is to receive good news from the various military districts in the border areas, and the other is to tap the treasury silver in the Ming Dynasty treasury.
Once these two suggestions are implemented, at least 30 to 40% of the gold and silver in the Ming Dynasty's treasury will be consumed.
"On July 5th, we agree to increase the salary of officials. However, if we want to recruit more officials, it is really a waste. The officials currently used by the court are not enough. If we recruit more officials, wouldn't you give them
A chance for many people to be lazy?" Zhu Yuanzhang said with some confusion.
Zhu Han was still calm, "The expansion of officials I'm talking about is not simply recruiting new people, but recruiting many of the officials currently used by the court into formal officials, who will also be evaluated and hired like regular officials.
Removal and transfer!”
The problem Zhu Han mentioned was exactly the problem of grassroots officials in the Ming Dynasty that Liu Bowen, Li Shanchang and others did not think of.
The Ming and Qing dynasties in history were the pinnacle of feudal rule.
However, there has been little progress in their management of grassroots officials.
The actual controllers of local power were not the officials dispatched by the imperial court, but officials with neither high nor high official positions.
Local officials are often passed down from generation to generation, and they do not have the same tenure and transfer restrictions as the imperial officials. In addition, they are married to each other, which results in an ironclad officialdom.
official.
The corruption of power at the local grassroots level is most serious among officials who are inconspicuous in the eyes of important officials in the imperial court.
Zhu Han's plan was to directly incorporate these lowest-level officials into the unified assessment of the imperial court, thus cutting off the soil of hereditary inheritance and mutual collusion among officials at the grassroots level.
After Zhu Han expressed his thoughts, his brother Zhu Yuanzhang immediately clapped his hands excitedly.
"Qi Wu, your proposal is so good, it touches our hearts!"
As Zhu Yuanzhang said this, he kept remembering in his mind the scene in which the grassroots officials of the Yuan Dynasty forced his father and mother to die when they were collecting taxes.
People always feel that the high officials in the imperial court are all honest officials, while most of the local officials are corrupt and difficult to deal with.
However, the imperial court has never come up with corresponding measures to solve this problem.
Now that the Ming Dynasty had sufficient fiscal revenue, it could use a large amount of salary to include all officials, big and small, in the unified assessment of the imperial court.
Emperor Zhu Yuanzhang of the Ming Dynasty affirmed Zhu Han's suggestion. Naturally, Li Shanchang, Liu Bowen, Zhu Sheng, Shi Naian and others would not have any objections.
The second major plan started in the sixth year of Hongwu in the Ming Dynasty officially set the tone today.
The first is to continue to maintain the strategy of recuperation and recuperation. Except for the construction of Yingtian Mansion and Beiping Mansion, all other large-scale projects of the imperial court are mainly focused on water conservancy and people's livelihood. Even Fengyang, the emperor's hometown, will not build the capital imperial mausoleum.
Complete water conservancy ditches.
This suggestion was made after Zhu Han strongly persuaded his elder brother Zhu Yuanzhang.
Fengyang is not a place with good weather. Droughts and floods occur from time to time.
If there were a large number of disaster victims in the Longxing Land of the Ming Dynasty, it would be a big joke.
Therefore, in Zhu Han's opinion, building water conservancy ditches in his hometown of Fengyang is much more important than building the imperial mausoleum of Zhongdu.
The second national policy was to promote the Ming Dynasty's teachings throughout the world. The New Confucianism formulated by Zhu Han was adopted throughout the country as the only imperial examination content. By the way, local officials at the grassroots level were included in the unified assessment of the imperial court.
This move was equivalent to giving the Ming Dynasty a modern official system that was equivalent to the development of later generations in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, and its organizational and mobilization capabilities could surpass any feudal dynasty.
Finally, in the next five-year plan of the Ming Dynasty, Chen Youliang, who was entrenched in the southwest, was to be eliminated and the Chinese territory was completely unified.
As for other matters such as continuing to expel the remnants of Mongolia, sailing to the Western Ocean, and exploring barbaric lands such as Liaoyang and Haidong, etc., these are not rigid national policies and can be acted upon accordingly.
Under Zhu Han's influence, although today's Ming Dynasty is in dire straits, all walks of life are bursting with vitality.
Even with continuous wars, the livelihood of people everywhere is getting better day by day.
Under this situation, the news that the Ming Dynasty was going to regain Sichuan, Yunnan and other places in the southwest not only did not make the people panic and fear, but many people actively supported the court's decision to eliminate Chen Youliang's entrenched power.
Among them, businessmen and factory owners from Jiangnan, Huguang and other places are the main force!
This chapter is not over yet, please click on the next page to continue reading! Because many of these big businessmen and factory owners have absorbed the new technology developed by Zhu Han, there has been a gradual trend of capital sprouting.
And capital’s thirst for the consumer market is endless.
Sichuan, Yunnan and other places are all high-end places with good mountains and rivers and good people. If these places can be included in the territory of the Ming Dynasty, then the market of these big businessmen will be further expanded, and they will be able to make more money.
Zhu Han soon heard about these situations. Thinking that the Ming treasury was being taken seriously by him, he immediately paid new attention to his elder brother Zhu Yuanzhang.
Unexpectedly, when my brother Zhu Yuanzhang heard this, he immediately jumped up.
"How is this possible?"
"Let the court borrow money from the people?"
"If you do this kind of thing, you will lose the prestige of Ming Dynasty!"
"Qiwu, we can agree to anything you say, but not this!"
The suggestion put forward by Zhu Han and his brother Zhu Yuanzhang was to issue Ming bonds, which were actually a kind of war bond. Zhu Han even thought of a name for him, so they were called Pingxi bonds. The main purpose was to eliminate Chen Youliang who occupied the southwest.
But elder brother Zhu Yuanzhang obviously did not want to issue this bond.
Because in his opinion, borrowing money from the common people, especially borrowing money in the name of the court, was simply embarrassing.
"You borrow and pay back, and you also pay interest. What are you afraid of!?" Zhu Han looked relaxed.
"You say you have to borrow and repay, but the imperial court is supreme. The people must want to lend the money to the imperial court. If the imperial court does not repay it, there is nothing they can do. So they will definitely think that the imperial court is taking the opportunity to make money and plunder the people's wealth!"
Obviously, Zhu Yuanzhang's objection to the issuance of bonds was not simply about losing face, but was afraid that the people would take the opportunity to lose trust in the court.
"Brother, I am issuing bonds not only to provide the court with more military expenses, but also to open up a new life-saving path for future generations!" Zhu Han said with a serious face.
When Zhu Yuanzhang heard this, his eyes widened immediately and he asked curiously.